Europe from Helsinki to Finlandisation

Author(s): Andre Gunder Frank

Source: Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 25, No. 2 (Jan. 13, 1990), pp. 90-91
Published by: Economic and Political Weekly
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The results are disappointing, not because
they cannot live up to the rhetoric of the
founding fathers, but to their own historical
past. This was, after all, the land that pro-
duced ancient cities like Moenjodaro and the
grandeur of empires like those of the
Mauryas and the Mughals; the architectural
and artistic wonders of the Ajanta caves, the
Chola temples, the Shalimar gardens in
Kashmir and the TEaj Mahal in Agra.
Once Gandhi, contemplating the west and
its technology could say, "they are children
playing with razors", a thought also expres-
sed by Iqbal. Rajiv happily played with the
razor, nicking himself in the process with the
Bofors scandal. South Asia, it appears,
shorn of humanism, devoid of its sense of
destiny, cannot resist. At best it can imitate.
It is the period of amoral whiz-kids, com-
puter ex.perts and statistics. Where once
commentators were impressed with Mahat-
ma Gandhi's mnoral stature, it is India's
armed forces, the fourth largest in the world
which, if anything, impresses them now.
The links with the past are not entirely
broken: Rajiv Gandhi, like his grandfather,
is a Trinity man, Benazir, like her father,
went to Oxford. Iqbal's grandson is at
Cambridge. But the cradle of humanism,
which sparked ideas in South Asia, is itself
almost bankrupt. Its humanism is assumed,
but in danger of being mutated beyond
recognition along the highway to materia-
lism. Thatcherism is but one sample of this
mutation. If South Asia has no Jinnah or
Gandhi, Europe does not have a Churchill
or De Gaulle either. Unless South Asians are
able to recreate a vestige of humanism-a
climate of tolerance, a respect for the
minorities and less privileged, a rule of law,
an atmosphere of integrity-the future may
be painted with Lebanese hues. South Asia
is on the threshold of a new age.
Europe from Helsinki to
Finlandisation
Andre Gunder Frank
Eastern and Central Europe, and in its centre Germany, have now
moved to the top of the political, strategic and economic agenda
in Europe and much of the world. However, the questions of
whether and how to (re)unify Europe and (re)unite Germany will
not be so quickly settled.
GERMANY anid Eastern Europe have sud-
denly advanced to the top of the European
agenda. Yet Eastern Europe, not to mention
the Soviet Union, remained beyond the pale
when in 1983 1 argued for The European
Challenge: From Atlantic Alliance to Pan-
European Enterite for Peace and Jobs.' I
said that world economic and strategic
developments would open a door of political
opportunity for East-West European rap-
prochement. Xit, even
six,months
ago, West
Europeans were still only concerned about
their own integration in 1992, while East
Europeans were even more intent on their
domestic political problems. So under the
title 'World Debt, the European Challenge
and 1992'2 I returned to my theme to argue
that recent and proba;'1e near future
economic and strategic d:i 2i:opments would
lead immediately to il. > orway of Pan-
European integration. . F.ropean inte-
gration must reach out (- more urgently
towards Easterin Euron- and the Soviet
Union, who would be knocking on the door.
I argued that the prinicipal obstacle would
be French jealousy of Germany. Germany
itself, or Britain's reservations about Europe
under Margaret Thatchier, or even possible
American and/or Soviet security demands
would not pose serious obstacles to greater
and faster European unification. My for-
mula wvas "Finno-Jugoslavisation of Eastern
Europe and Swedo-AustrianisItion of
Western Europe".
Eastern and Central Europe, and in its
centre Germany, have now moved to the top
of the political, strategic, and economic
agenda in Europe and much of the world.
Economic imperatives have indeed shaped
political agencies through
GorbachFv's
call
for a "Common European Home", the
liberalisation of the state and government
in Hungary and the Solidarity government
in Poland in the summer of 1989, and most
dramatically by the holes punched in The
Wall in Berlin on November 9. Now her
British Tory colleagues themselves are likely
to amputate Thatcher's dragging foot, with
which she wants to slow down monetary,
economic, and social union among the West
European 12. (Dennis Healy called her the
Erich Honeker of the West, a week before
the latter took his leave.) The French want
to make haste to consolidate the (West)
European Community and their own place
in the EEC, while the Germans are more
intent on reaching out eastward and
expanding/strengthening their own place in
all of Europe-to the chagrin of the French.
That is another reason why the British must
become more European fast-to safeguard
their place and help maintain some balance
in Europe.
In the meantime, the president of United
States, George Bush, travelled to Warsaw
and Budapest, and he is now followed by the
president of the European Commission,
Jacques Delors. On his return from the East,
Bush told the other G7 leaders at their Paris
summit in July last year that the (West)
Europeans should handle the problems of
Eastern Europe themselves. The (West)
European Parliament now asks itself what
to do about Eastern Europe. Events
aro4ind
The Wall impelled French president Nlitter-
rand to call a special meeting of (West)
European Community leaders in Paris. No
doubt, the December "Yalta to Malta"
meeting between presidents Gorbachev and
Bush on ships in the Mediterranean now will
also focus on (East) European developments.
However, they should symbolically shift their
venue to Berlin and Potsdam-where
Truman and Stalin already started the cold
war in 1945. They could also hold a joint
public session with invited German and
other European leaders from East and West
under the Brandenburger Tor and/or on the
Potsdammer Platz. Finally, all could take
home some pieces of the wall as souvenirs
of the cold war, which is now over, and of
the division of Europe, which is now
untenable and superfluous.
Still, these leaders and meetings will not
so quickly settle the questions of whether
and how to (re)unify Europe and perhap,
to (re)unite Germany and Berlin in its centre.
The following questions, and some possible
answers, remain open among others.
-Do NATO and the Warsaw Pact now have
useful roles (more than before)? Yes, but not
to safeguard earlier American, Soviet and
other interests in the division of Europe
between East and West. Instead, the alliances
can now offer some stability through the
transition to greater European unification.
Even Soviet and American security interests
can be furthered better by a stably united
Europe than by divided or unstable ones.
-Is 1992 still a milestone in European inte-
gration? Yes, but not for the construction
of a Fortress Western Europe. Instead, 1992
should lead to the progressive association of
more and more Europeans in concentric
circles around the EEC and Germany. The
association of EFTA to the EEC could be
on, outer circle, and the progressive associa-
tion of East European countries to EFTA
or directly to the EEC could be another. The
forces of world economic competition are
engendering regionalisation and possible
bloc formation anyway. In this world,
American and Japanese led regions (not to
mention any jointly run Pacific Basin) can
be better countered by more Pan-European
than only EEC integration.
-Does a severe recession still pose
a threat
before 1992? Yes, but an insufficiently
appreciated one, as I argued
in
'Blocking
the
Black Debt Hole in the 1990s' 3 However,
West European investments in and exports
to Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union
could act as an important stimulating
factor
or palliative to recession in the West and full
blown economic and social crisis in the East.
The opening of the Berlin Wall and German
Chanceller Kohl's trip to Poland have
dramatised and stimulated these economic
possibilities, especially for Germany. The
90 Economic and P?olitical Weekly January 13, 1990
short run transitionary costs of increasing
economic integration and marketisation now
are less than the long run costs of post-
poning them to later.
-Is reunification of Germany and Berlin a
serious prospect? Yes, but not necessarily in
the short run (most East Germans don't
want it) nor in isolation from European
unity. Nor need political precede social and
economic unification. Instead progress
should be the other way around. German
unification can better be furthered through
and within Pan-European unity. Even con-
tinued German membership in their respec-
tive and still surviving military alliances can
further European unity and German unifica-
tion by contributing to demilitarisation and
confidence building in Central Europe.
Within this context, Germans can take many
steps towards (re)unification by (re)insti-
tuting cross border travel, some back and
forth movement of workers, trade and in-
vestment, and
pf
course cultural exchanges,
not only with each other, but also with their
neighbours, East and West.
-Are enhanced East-West German (and
European) social and economic relations
problematic? Yes, probably more so than the
initial euphoria suggets. With open borders,
less East Germans will forsake their relative
welfare state security to compete directly in
the market in the West. Therefore, there will
also be limits to their stimulation of housing
construction and consumer sales in the West.
However, continued 10 to 1 mark exchange
rates and consumer subsidies in the East can
encourage West German capital and even
consumers to increase demand for scarce
resources and production in the East. This
could destabilise the economy in the East
(and to a lesser extent in the West) and force
the pace of convertibility in exchange rates,
and greater similarity in prices, social
security, patterns of consumption and pro-
duction, yes and of unemployment and
poverty, etc, between East and West
Germany, and at a further remove in Europe.
For the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe has
become more of a burden than an asset
while it can be a boon for Western Europe.
The social and political costs of this,transi-
tion can be reduced-but not eliminated-by
timely awareness of these problems and by
'planning' for their resolution. Illusions of
equality and welfare for all would, however,
be subject to the dangers of explosion when
they become untenable.
What would some helpful instead of
harmful steps be?
-Abandon the Giscard-Schmidt proposal
of building the (West) European Economic
Community around a Franco-German
military axis for 'security' against the
'enemy' in the East. Obviate this proposal
bv extending eastward the reach of some
West European institutions,
such as the
European Commission, parliament and the
Council of Europe; and extend the relations
of Comecon westward. Also facilitate inter-
national collaboration among NGOs and
social movements in a Citizens Europe to be
run not only by business, banks, govern-
ments, and international institutions and
alliances. All could better collaborate in Pan-
European movements of goods and people,
and particularly to collaborate in the
amelioration of ecological and security
problems of interest to all Europeans.
-Maintain NATO (with a more European
pillar) and the Warsaw Pact as long as they
are useful to help sustain stability and con-
fidence among their members and now to
jointly promote the withdrawal of foreign
troops, arms reduction, defensive defence
and collective security throughout Europe.
-Leave the two Germanies in their respec-
tive but changing alliances. That is safer
than trying to integrate the GDR into the
BRD and NATO and to destablise the
Warsaw Pact-and thereby the world. Even
the neutralisation of both Germanies, not
to mention of a united Germany, outside
their (thereby practically destroyed) alliances
would be more destabilising than using
existing formal institutions to change their
internal content and external relations.
-Maintain other existing post-war borders
in Europe as long as possible, but work
towards other and integrating resolutions of
national and ethnic grievances. More
internal national and external Pan-European
integration is preferable to more Balkanisa-
tion, even or especially in the Balkans!
-Resolve economic crisis and forestall
political upheaval through economic co-
operation and integration before the ag-
gravation of economic crisis fuels flames of
ethnic and other discontent with hopes that
the grass is greener Qn the other side. In
particular, take multilateral European wide
steps to reduce the burdens of foreign and
domestic debt on those least able to bear
them in Poland, Hungary, Jugoslavia and
elsewhere in Eastern Europe. A Eurofund
created for the purpose could become the
de facto germ of a European Central Bank.
Promote multilateral and bilateral finance
of all kinds of joint ventures in their
broadest sense of the word.
-Put both World War II and the Cold War
finally to rest through a Peace Treaty to be
signed by the four powers and all other
interested parties at another international
conference modelled on the Helsinki pro-
cess, this time perhaps under UN-auspices.
The Peace Treaty should confirm and
guarantee existing borders, especially
German ones, and calm the fears of Poles
and others. Versailles opened the door to
Hitler and another war, and Yalta and
Potsdam promoted the Cold War. Therefore,
a new Peace Treaty now should and could
provide for more secure yet flexible institu-
tional mechanisms for possible future
voluntary and negotiated alterations in the
political, social, cultural, and economic
arrangements inherited from World Wars I
and II. Now the motto could be from
Helsinki to the Finlandisation of Europe.
Notes
1 Nottingham: Spokesmen Press 1983.
2 Economic and Political Weekly, April 29,
1989.
3 Economic and Political Weekly, October 21,
1989.
SOUTH ASIAN STRATEGIC ISSUES
SRI Lankan Perspectives
SHELTON U KODIKARA (editor)
Sri Lanka's place in the South Asian states-system has undergone a fundamental change
in recent years. This is partly a result of the aggravation and subsequent internationalisa-
tion of ethnic tension in the island and partly because its strategic importance to In-
dia has been considerably enhanced as a result of changing political configurations
both in the international system and in the region itself. This volume provides what
may be regarded as specifically Sri Lankan perspectives on these changing configura-
tions of politics.
One of the major features of this book is the analysis of the geo-strategic scenario
in South Asia in relation to the new situation which has been created by the signing
of the Indo-Sri Lanka Agreement in July 1987
CONTRIBUTORS: Shelton U Kodikara/Mahinda Werake/Jayadeva Uyangoda/Bertram
E S J Bastiampillai/Amal Jayawardane/A Sivarajah/Gamini B Keerawella
204 pages/220 x 140 mm/Rs 165.00 (hb)/Rs 85.00 (pb)/1990
SAGE PUBLICATIONS INDIA PRIVATE LIMITED
Post Box 4215. New Delhi 1.10048
Economic and Political Weekly January 13, 1990 91